Electrical connectors having surface mountable contacts are well known. They are typically used to avoid having to put multiple holes through circuit boards or back planes. Furthermore surface mounted connectors permit closer spacing of circuit pads on a board, which is particularly suitable with high density connectors. It is desirable in making surface mountable connectors that the surface mountable contact portions of all of the terminals in the connector are substantially in the same plane to assure that all of the contact portions engage the respective circuit pads of the boards. Various methods have been used to achieve this desired result. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,887, for example, the terminals are provided with spring arms that can accommodate variations in tolerances through the manufacturing process. The spring arms provide effective normal force to assure electrical continuity.
Typically connector housings have additional mounting legs or other means for securing the connector housing to the board to assure that all the surface mountable contacts remain engaged on the board so that they may be electrically connected by solder or other means known in the art. If the contact surfaces are not substantially coplanar, undue stress may be placed on the soldered connections causing the connection to break.
In one method of manufacturing surface mountable connectors, preformed terminals are inserted into appropriately configured terminal-receiving passageways. Another method of manufacturing involves inserting all the terminals into a housing and then simultaneously bending all the terminals to form the surface mountable sections. This method, however, requires considerable force.